Not 2 years ago Star Wars fandom was blown away with the release of The Force Awakens.
Breathing new life into a franchise that was relegated to television (where it was doing pretty awesomely), The Force Awakens reignited that familiar hunger within every true Star Wars fan: the desire for more!
And fed more we were, with yesterday’s trailer… but as always, we were left with more questions than answers.
[divider]I) The Phantom Protagonist[/divider]
George Lucas has explicitly made it clear that the Star Wars trilogies, both Original and Prequel, are to work as one poem. And, given the beats of The Force Awakens, it’s safe to assume that this continues with the Sequel Trilogy as well.
In the vein of this, it’s safe to assume that the narrative of The Last Jedi will take a bit of a turn from The Force Awakens. Where A New Hope could have arguably been labelled as an ensemble cast with no one hero, by the time we’re in the heart of The Empire Strikes Back, it is made very clear that Luke is the protagonist of the series.
This is mirrored (albeit rather shoddily) in The Phantom Menace with Anakin’s introduction as a side character only to become the centre of the plot with Attack of the Clones.
With The Force Awakens, we got a pretty balanced dose of Rey and Finn, so things could probably go one of two ways: the more obvious of which is that the narrative pushes Rey to the front, or the other would be to shift the perspective to Kylo and establish his spiral only to have him find redemption in contrast to Anakin’s journey in Revenge of the Sith.
[divider]II) Attack of the Feels[/divider]
December 27 2016 saw the passing of our Princess and General, Carrie Fisher. While her character will certainly be given the grand send-off she deserves, it will do little to ease the pain fans are sure to feel through the film.
[divider]III) Revenge of the Underused Characters[/divider]
In a case of Boba Fettititis, the much celebrated Captain Phasma was unceremoniously trashed (literally) in The Force Awakens. While this was largely due to deleted scenes (which is more than compensated for by the recent Captain Phasma comic mini-series) it still remains that the character wasn’t given the treatment she deserved.
The same could also be said for Poe Dameron. While certainly given the hero treatment, his absence from the bulk of the second act is all but too noticeable. Although we don’t see too much of him in this trailer, as the only representative of the active machinations of the Resistance (other than Leia), I think we can take solace in the fact that he’ll be given a bigger role this time.